Having spent the last couple of years writing a spy thriller set on Ascension Island I was interested to see this mysterious bit of British volcano surfacing in the news recently, once as a place the Home Secretary thought might be good to send asylum seekers, once turning up on the UK’s Green List of holiday destinations that required no quarantine.

Those who explored it as an option for a getaway might have been disappointed. An eight square mile lump of rock in the South Atlantic, halfway between Brazil and Angola, Ascension is one of the most remote islands in the world. Anyone researching their trip to its beaches would have seen that it contains a lot of satellite dishes, a golf course made of ash, two military bases (US and UK) and a village with a school and convenience store. But they’d also learn that potholes on the runway have meant that all MOD flights from Brize Norton (previously the only straightforward way to reach the place) have been suspended for the past four years, and you now need to get three flights in each direction (available once a month), or buy yourself a yacht. You also need permission from the island’s Administrator to stay there. And the only hotel has recently closed down. All of which provokes the question: what’s there? And why?

Read the full article here: https://hushkit.net/2021/07/23/five-fun-vaguely-flight-related-facts-about-ascension-island-with-author-oliver-harris/